Official how to keep AO alive thread

[Glickman]

Is the new owner going to keep making products and supporting existing owners? $1000/mo is nothing. What is the cost of hiring another tech support person? Way more than that... I would keep it up just for the technical support aspect.

from what ive heard, tom will be keeping AO for now, but it seems dave has something up his sleeve...

[Chronobreak]

from what ive heard, tom will be keeping AO for now, but it seems dave has something up his sleeve...

w/e happened to that magsmith.com thing?

[NewMagMan21]

I havent been here very long but why is this a problem. How did you guys get money before. And what really has changed I mean maybe its more complicted than Im aware of but just cuz management has changed what changes on the site if Tom picked up the tab why cant Dave ( that sounds selfish, sorry but still) Thats my bit
But still if you need em MORE IDEAS COMING

[WARPED1]

I wouldn't post here if I have to pay.

Ditto.............

[deadeye9]

AO could save alot of money by not paying the mods

[cphilip]

AO could save alot of money by not paying the mods

they would save nothing... because it pays nothing...

I want to point out that Toms figures include both AGD's site AND AO. So its not going to cost that much to just do AO.... and there are things in the works to reduce that significantly. So hold on to your hats. Remember that at this time... AO and AGD are seperate. I got no indication AGD wants to pick up AO. And there is no reason to expect AO to host AGD's site either. So don't get too worried. It will all shake out in the next month or so.

[GA Devil]

Guys,

I am guestimating that overall it costs about 1000 bucks a month to run this site. I agree that a sign up fee is a waist of time and will kill AO off. I do think that donations are a good idea with bonus stuff for doing so like sigs and avatars. It may make sense to charge a yearly membership fee to list stuff in the classifieds.

AGD

Honestly I think take donations and for those that donate make them recognized by something under their name "supporting member" sorta like pbn does for people. And on top of that, sell banner space to your dealers. It works for others and will take some burden off 1 persons shoulders.

[NewMagMan21]

Hey that was my Idea... ^^^

[GA Devil]

Hey that was my Idea... ^^^

Yeah i wasnt taking the credit or anythign for it..just my 42 cents worth of opinion.

[NewMagMan21]

No I was just kidding, but anyway back on topic....
Im sure that with the combined efforts/Ideas of everyone AO will stay running without a problem.

Oh yea shouldn't this be "stickied" its kinda important

[Thordic]

Oh yea shouldn't this be "stickied" its kinda important

The bottom line is, AO isn't going anywhere.

If Tom can't find a way to make it cost-effective for him to keep it up and manage it himself, theres a group of members willing to get together to make sure that enough money is donated/raised to keep the site going. Nothing would change, same site and mods and whatnot.

I've already been in contact with the guys who host AO to doublecheck on prices and whatnot and we have a backup plan in the works in case it's needed. So is AO somehow stumbles, some of us will catch it.

[hitech]

...well gues he took off and left the check...

No he has not.

[luke]

(Quote by Dave Zupan)

"This is my 1st post here

I started reading OA only last evening after TK posted the "news" of the current bussiness here at AGD. I will read the rest of this thread now, but I may not post much or anything till later this evening. I have been very busy over the past week or so, and will be very busy for the next week or so with all the legal and bank stuff.

I hope to continue on the path Tom has beaten, and add a few cul-de-sacs along the way.
Things shouldn't change too much from the outside view into AGD, I will only try to add to the history, not erase history. There will be some internal restructuring, but it should not dramaticly affect the customers & fans of the AGD products.

More later, Thank You ALL

zupe
(Dave Zupan)

ps: I have a proposal for Tom and AO "

It sounds like he may be interested in being part of AO some how. I wonder why he doesn't just buy it.

[hitech]

It sounds like he may be interested in being part of AO some how. I wonder why he doesn't just buy it.

I have always questioned whether AO was worth it financially to AGD. I actually got the chance to question Tom about it. He said that is was more than worth it because members did things like his marketing design work (slogans, graphics, etc), provided good feed back on new products and helped with market research (kind of like how I get custom products designed for me at a minimal cost ). Since none of that is going on right now, it would seem to me that AO isn't worth it financially to AGD. However, I know nothing of the future...

[Cyberious]

How about this?

-Free membership allows posting but no attachments. (Folks could still host their pictures elsewhere and provide a link)
-$10 yearly fee allows basically what we are able to do today.
- Charge for Ad's that appear in the space that AGD's ads do today.

As has been stated I think that if we lower the space used to house attachments that costs would go way down. Also, perhaps for those that do have attachments they could be automatically stripped out after 60 days maybe.